'More than just a dinner committee'

In a conference room tucked deep inside the Watergate, the White House Correspondents’ Association board hashes out details of the organization’s annual dinner, like the always touchy question of how many tables each news organization gets.

They are preparing for one of the glitziest nights in Washington, when Beltway politicos get to rub elbows with Hollywood stars.

But the association’s annual fundraising dinner is only a fraction of what the board — and the association — does.

“We’re very, very proud of the dinner, and it has a very important role in raising money for our scholarship fund,” WHCA President Caren Bohan said. “But what a lot of people don’t realize is we’re more than just a dinner committee.”

Representing the hundreds of journalists who cover the White House, the WHCA board meets regularly with White House officials to keep up access to the president and push for more — more news conferences, fewer scripted cattle calls, more interviews with top-level officials.

There’s also the tens of thousands of dollars in scholarships the WHCA awards annually — this year over $100,000 — to students interested in pursuing journalism, which are funded by proceeds from the dinner.

Sometimes the concerns get even more basic than that.

“It can go from a presidential press conference and coverage and getting information down to not having working vending machines and a working refrigerator in the press area,” said WHCA board member April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks. “We cover it all.”

The association is approaching its 100-year anniversary in 2014, and many are aware of the struggles it has faced over the years — against Republican and Democratic administrations and within its ranks. Perhaps the best known still remains the push to allow women to attend the dinner, led by Helen Thomas and facilitated finally by President John F. Kennedy in 1962.

But there are more, lower-profile struggles that continue even now. During Bohan’s three-year tenure, she helped foreign reporters gain more acceptance at the White House and in the press corps. Previously, mostly American journalists had been part of a rotating group of reporters that covered certain presidential events. But Bohan helped the foreign reporters with their own rotating group that now regularly covers the events, particularly diplomatic visits, along with the American group.

“They don’t do it for every event, but events of interest to the foreign press, they will do. If the president is meeting with a foreign leader, if there’s a summit in Washington of some kind and the president is participating, then they have somebody from their group representing them,” she said. “It took a lot of work to get that off the ground.”